


Even In My Worst Lies

by Blake



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur being nice to Merlin, Banter, Established Relationship, Gwen and Arthur's low-key lavender marriage, M/M, Master/Servant, Merlin in a dress, Misunderstandings, Semi-established relationship, i guess, surprise parties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:02:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27782671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blake/pseuds/Blake
Summary: It's Merlin's birthday and Arthur is very thoughtful.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 53





	Even In My Worst Lies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [objectlesson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/gifts).



> A birthday gift! I imagine this taking place between seasons four and five. Can you believe I finished writing this moments _before_ I saw the episode where Merlin literally wears a dress? It's almost as though it's a recurring theme.

It’s Merlin’s birthday and, as usual, he’s in a bit of a strop. Really, if Arthur _hadn’t_ remembered the date, he would probably have been able to tell just by the singular pout on Merlin’s pursed lips while he brings in breakfast. Always so quick to play the victim. Always so quick to assume no one’s remembered his birthday.

There’s nothing for it but to meet him halfway. “What on earth has gotten into you?” Arthur asks through a mouthful of bread, knowing full well that the answer will be, _“Nothing.”_

Merlin sighs, shoulders sagging, eyes drooping. “Nothing.”

Arthur hides a frown behind his hand. It should be satisfying to be right, but it’s not. “Then why does your face look like that?”

Blue eyes flash over to Arthur briefly, leaving a blaze of heat in their wake, as they always do. “Like what?” Merlin asks, his pout twisting ever so slightly into a semblance of a smirk. His full, pink lips call out to Arthur’s teeth, which ache with the memory of their supple shape under his bite. It’s a little embarrassing how much Arthur wants him, and how often.

Arthur clears his throat and struggles to find some ugly part of Merlin’s face. “Like you’ve just swallowed sour milk.”

Merlin’s expression hardens into something testy. And satisfying. “Oh, that’s just because of your boots,” he says with an almost mean-spirited smile. He gestures to the allegedly foul-smelling boots, which are scattered across the floor at the foot of the bed from, well, last night, when they were kicked off in a bit of a haste.

The blush on Merlin’s face when he looks at them and, apparently, remembers quite a lot makes Arthur feel better about the heat rising on his own cheeks. “I suppose that means they require some extra detailed cleaning today,” Arthur says, taking another bite of food to smooth out any cracks in the authoritativeness in his voice. “After all, the Queen and I do have a banquet to attend tonight, and I do hope my boots don’t give away to everyone that I have an idiot for a manservant.”

Merlin’s eyebrows merely flinch briefly upward in recognition of the insult before settling into confusion. “A banquet?”

“ _Yes_ , Merlin. You know, typically, even a _half-decent_ manservant would be expected to keep up with my calendar and have the appropriate garments prepared.”

That irritates Merlin enough that he walks right up to the table and steals a bit of cheese off of Arthur’s plate in retaliation. Arthur slaps his hand just for good measure, and then fights off a smile, because he’s afraid that whatever fondness shows through his smile would only make Merlin happier, and his plan absolutely depends on Merlin feeling miserable and neglected all day.

Luckily, the day is particularly gloomy, the meetings are especially boring, and the knights’ training is interrupted by rain so abruptly that Merlin is a shivering, sopping mess by the time he’s put all the equipment away. He glowers at Arthur like he’s contemplating regicide, though the pretty catch of raindrops on his eyelashes undermines the violence of the look. The kiss Arthur steals washes the murderous expression away almost entirely. For a moment. It comes back with a generous tinge of suspicion.

“What was that?” he asks, because he stubbornly refuses to let Arthur do anything simply nice for him, ever, without it getting tangled up in questions and games and pretense.

Arthur turns away and busies himself with his gloves. He’s quite comfortable with questions, so long as they’re a part of games and pretense. “It’s called a kiss, Merlin. Really, I knew you were stupid, but I didn’t know you could so easily forget such things from one day to the next.”

He can sense Merlin bristling behind him. “I see,” Merlin says miserably, because he stubbornly refuses to defend his own intelligence, even when they both know Arthur’s insults to it are just jokes at this point. It seems as if he stubbornly takes comfort in believing that Arthur thinks so little of him. Just about everything he does seems to be done stubbornly. Sometimes Arthur thinks sheer stubbornness might be the only reason Merlin still likes him.

“Go home and dry off. The last thing I need at the banquet is a wet manservant. And put on your best clothes.”

Merlin actually obeys him, after a few miserable attempts to accuse Arthur of trying to get rid of him. Arthur is, of course, trying to get rid of him, but not for whatever reasons Merlin seems to suspect. If he suspected anything accurate about what Arthur was doing, he would have an insufferably smug smile on his insufferably pretty face. Instead, he stomps out of the room, his wet shoes squelching with each belabored step. 

When Merlin enters Arthur’s rooms that evening and finds a gathering of his friends raising their glasses to him whilst standing around a simple celebratory feast, the misery utterly melts away from his face. He gets that childish-wide grin on his fact, the one that makes the corners of his eyes erupt in crinkles beyond their years, which Arthur often longs to kiss, but rarely gets to, because Merlin doesn’t look at _him_ like that.

“You remembered,” Merlin says to Gwen, who hands him a cup of ale, which Arthur had specially brought up in addition to the wine because of how fond he knows Merlin is of what they serve at the tavern.

Gwen, bless her, meets Arthur’s eyes, either easing the sting or mockingly reminding him that he has no secrets from her. “We all did,” she says in the graceful, mild, and diplomatic way she always says things that mean very little and very much at the same time.

Of course, because Merlin is not a fool, Gwen’s meaningful glance in Arthur’s direction does not go unnoticed. Merlin looks right at him, probably realizing Arthur planned this whole surprise party on his own, probably realizing that he’s frighteningly, appallingly dear to Arthur. It would all be much easier to swallow if Merlin really were a fool.

“We thought you might forget your own birthday,” Arthur says with an affectedly pitying twist to his mouth. “We take it upon ourselves to keep track of important dates on behalf of those who cannot keep a calendar in their heads.”

“How thoughtful of you,” Merlin says to him directly, with that knowing gleam in his eyes that Arthur would go mad without, for it’s the only clue that he _knows_ that Arthur knows he’s actually brilliant. Or maybe Arthur would be less mad without it, without Merlin seeing through to how much he cares for him. Or maybe Arthur has just had too much wine already, and should stop watching Merlin’s eyes sparkle in the candlelight.

There’s some strange comfort to find in impatience. The feast goes by slowly, and Arthur is almost glad to find that he doesn’t take total, selfless pleasure in watching Merlin happily enjoying the company of the knights, servants, and, well, court physicians that he calls his friends. Arthur would very much like to move onto the next part of the evening, even if Merlin won’t enjoy it as much as this, and that alone must prove Arthur’s not _totally_ lost.

Fully enjoying the knowledge that he’s not fully enjoying Merlin’s enjoyment of the feast, Arthur lets the meal pass by with a smile on his lips and doesn’t let it falter even when Merlin meets his eyes across the table.

“All right, get out, out with you. To bed. I need my knights well-rested,” Arthur shouts a couple of hours later, when the guests are already on their way out the door. Gwen kisses him on the cheek, and then turns to kiss Merlin’s cheek before following her maidservant out and closing the door behind them.

There’s nothing wrong with how much pleasure Arthur takes in the simultaneous peace and thrill of being locked away in his private rooms with Merlin, who is possibly the greatest flaw in his logic and lifelong strategy. At least, there’s nothing wrong with it, as long as he doesn’t dwell on it. He knows that if he looks at Merlin’s face, he’ll see a smug expression that will remind him just how obvious his weak spot for the man is. He turns away instead. “I got you a gift.” He walks to the bed and bends to retrieve the small chest he’d stowed beneath it earlier.

The smugness shines through Merlin’s voice, inescapable. “Oh? A feast, and a gathering of all my friends, and a barrel of disgusting ale wasn’t enough?”

Arthur bites down, ignoring the urge to protest that Merlin have liked the ale, because that urge was a product of his need for reassurance that he had made Merlin happy, and his need for reassurance was just embarrassing. “Oh, please. That much was just to keep you from murdering me in my sleep. I’ve seen you year after year, sulking about and grumbling all day long when you think everyone’s forgotten your special day.” Arthur fidgets with the fastenings of the chest, opening them and reclosing them, undecided about the best way to present a gift to a servant who’s more than a servant, a partner who’s less than a partner. “So much petty bitterness. It’s not very becoming.”

Merlin appears right behind him without warning and hooks his chin over Arthur’s shoulder. It’s that boldness that steals Arthur’s breath, sets his shoulders to quaking under the subtle pressure of Merlin’s throat. “I think you think it’s very becoming,” Merlin accuses. His breath smells like wine, not beer, which is odd—unless it’s Arthur’s own breath, teased out of him in gusts by Merlin’s stealthy hand settling onto his waist.

“Your gift,” Arthur says to evade that line of interrogation.

Merlin steps closer to the chest. His expression suggests that he’s expecting to find horse shit inside, or maybe a stinking pair of boots that need polishing. A wave of relief washes over Arthur as he watches the dubious twitch of Merlin’s dark eyebrow. It would have been mortifying if he had listened to Gwen and gotten Merlin a _sincere_ gift.

“Hah. It’s a dress,” Merlin quips, turning from the garment in his hands to look at Arthur with his most unimpressed look.

Arthur makes half an attempt at seeming offended by such an indifferent reception. “A very well- _made_ dress.” He crowds in close, smelling Merlin’s hair, reaching between Merlin’s hands to demonstrate the fineness of the material by wrapping it in his fist. “And made to your very peculiar dimensions. So you don’t have to keep stealing away into _my wife’s_ wardrobe to try to squeeze into her dresses.”

Merlin puts down the garment, dragging Arthur’s hand down with it, and gives him a hard look. “You really will stop at nothing to see me in a dress, won’t you?”

“Right, Merlin,” Arthur says, rather graciously, considering the ridiculousness of the implication that _he’s_ the one that wants Merlin to wear a dress. “It’s definitely all _I_ think about.”

Merlin rolls his eyes. The only suitable response is for Arthur to forcibly lift the shirt off his rail-thin body and try to shove the dress down into its place. Only, Merlin resists the latter attempt, if not the former, and then his slim chest is wriggling around under Arthur’s hands, and the satin of the dress is shifting between their skin, and Arthur has to pin him to the bed with his hips in order to pull the thing over Merlin’s uncooperative head, and Merlin sort of sags against him in that way he does sometimes, and then Merlin’s eyes go half-lidded and lock on Arthur’s mouth, and he pushes up gracelessly and defiantly against Arthur’s hold, and all Arthur can think about is how ridiculous the dress looks, and how much he wants Merlin anyways, and how terrible that is.

Merlin kisses him. Not tentative enough for someone wearing such a fine dress. Too tentative for someone whose mouth has been on as many parts of Arthur’s body as Merlin’s has. Arthur laughs. Merlin laughs. Merlin’s breath trembles under the hand Arthur’s got firmly set against his ribcage, and the satin feels like a shimmer between them.

“Since it’s your birthday,” Arthur murmurs when Merlin holds him just so and kisses that place behind Arthur’s ear that makes him feel quite weak, “I’ll let you get on your knees for me.”

The humming laughter, diluted with pleasure, vibrating behind Arthur’s ear makes his vision blur, narrows his senses down to the places where he and Merlin touch. “That’s not much of a gift. I can have that whenever I want.”

Arthur can’t be bothered to dispute that point at the moment, though he’s sure there are countless moments every day when he would refuse Merlin such a thing. “That doesn’t mean it’s not what you want,” he argues instead.

Apparently ceding the point, Merlin slides down to his knees. His mouth may be generous, but the tight, greedy way he holds Arthur’s hip—then thigh, then stomach, then thigh again—is a reassuring testament to how much he really does want this.

“Fuck, Merlin,” Arthur gasps, torn between wanting to let his upper body collapse onto the bed behind him and not wanting to let go of the fist he has in Merlin’s hair. His hips are trapped between Merlin’s mouth and the bed, and pleasure is radiating hotly throughout him in erratic spurts with every trick of that insufferable, insubordinate tongue. “You feel.” His body collapses against the bed against his will. His fists have to clench in the bedclothes beneath him. “So good.”

Merlin pulls off, teasing with the demurest of kisses as he talks. “I could make you feel”—a caress of his soft lips sends a shard of shivers up Arthur’s spine—“ _so much better_.”

Arthur goes a little mad for a moment, between Merlin’s too-gentle mouthing across his cock and the sudden flood of images in his mind. Things they’ve done a lot. Things they’ve done once. All the things Merlin might be referring to, the things that Merlin knows about how Arthur reacts to his various kinds of touch. The fact that Merlin knows his body’s secrets.

Arthur struggles to swallow and asks the curtains above him, because they’re easier to be petulant to in this moment, “Then why don’t you?”

Merlin’s mouth goes still. It takes Arthur by surprise, because he does not know Merlin’s secrets as well as Merlin knows his.

All the wind is knocked out of Arthur’s chest in the form of a laugh when Merlin jumps up onto the bed with him, straddling his hips and pressing close. “Because,” he murmurs, his smile gushing hot, spicy breath all over Arthur’s mouth. “You’re spoiled enough as it is.” He hoists the stupid dress up high enough to get both their cocks lined up in his hand beneath its folds. Arthur pulls his legs up so he can dig his heels into the bed and press up against Merlin. _I am not spoiled_ , he means to say, but he’s intoxicated by the spread of narrow hips across his thighs, struck dumb by the act of trying to merge the image of that stainless satin dress between them with what he feels is happening behind its protective drape.

Merlin claims his mouth, soft, fierce, and knowing. Arthur supposes he is quite spoiled, after all.


End file.
